But the Saratoga Adult Care Center, as it has for the past 15 years, is trying to provide an alternative to the drastic step of moving elderly people from their homes when they just need additional supervision and stimulation. The center's administrative director, Karen Lorenz, says the demand for that service has grown throughout the center's existence and will continue to as the aging population grows.

"We're busier now than five years ago, and there is going to be a need for more," she says.

The center started off as an extension of the Saratoga Area Senior Coordinating Council and is still overseen by the council's executive board. Recognizing the needs of the aged and their families, the council and supporters together raised money, acquired grants and built an addition to the senior center specifically designed to meet the needs of those who needed more supervision than the senior center could provide.

"They built this building, in particular, to be an adult day care center," Lorenz says. "It was the first such center in this county—most were, and are, in churches."

At first, the new care center operated only two days a week and served only a handful of seniors. Now, though, it is open every weekday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., with Lorenz and at least three staff members working with up to 21 seniors a day. The center is full on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and there are two people on the waiting list, Lorenz says, adding that she always refers those she turns away to other, similar centers.

In a supervised environment, the center provides stimulation and recreation tailored to the needs and abilities of seniors who have dementia or Parkinson's or are dealing with the effects of strokes, heart attacks or just aging. The center meets the needs of seniors who are no longer capable of attending or enjoying the senior center's offerings, meant for adults who can get themselves to and from classes and activities and who can choose what to participate in, Lorenz says. Most of the center's participants come from the West Valley area.

But it also meets the needs of the caregivers of those dependent seniors. For caregivers, dealing with the disabilities of a spouse, parent or other family member is a full-time job, and the care center offers them a chance to take a break from those responsibilities or take care of chores made more difficult with the presence of an infirm individual.

"As a caregiver, you're under a lot of pressure. What was a normal way of living suddenly becomes unbelievable," say George Crabtree, whose wife, Charlotte, has been coming to the center since its inception.

The Crabtrees have no family nearby, so they rely on the center for help that a family might normally provide.

"It's an extended family. It's a place to talk," Crabtree says. "It's essential, because everybody needs somebody."

Care center advisory board member Pat Bortle says she hears from caregivers all the time who tell her that the center has made enormous differences in their lives. But Bortle knows that firsthand—after her husband, Roy, had a stroke, he attended the center on Fridays for two years, until his death eight years ago.

"Every Friday was so important to me," Pat Bortle says. "And I never worried about him."

Bortle, who was a nurse, had been trying to care for Roy by herself. But her friends urged her to take a break; they saw her becoming more and more burned out from the 24-7 job. So she started to bring Roy to the center and found more than just a licensed program and a capable staff. She and Roy, like other families involved with the center, found that the staff tried to accommodate their very individual needs. She was able to meet families like hers and talk with other caregivers like herself, and discovered that she was not the only one who mourned the loss of her old relationship with her loved one and was frustrated by and angry about dealing with the new one.

The center offers a monthly support group for families of its participants, as well as three family appreciation nights a year, in which caregivers meet the staff and are given tokens of appreciation. Lorenz says that this fall the staff will give the caregivers a free Saturday of care, in which they can drop off their loved ones and then take care of holiday preparations or chores or just take a nap.

"We've been really fortunate with the staff, and you feel that when you come in," Crabtree says.

Lorenz describes a day when the staff made sure Pat and Roy Bortle felt special. She says that throughout his day at the center, Roy, who couldn't talk, kept drawing attention to his wedding ring. Finally, Lorenz pulled it off and read the inscription inside, learning that that day was his wedding anniversary. When Pat came to pick Roy up that afternoon, she found him waiting for her with a bouquet of flowers that Lorenz had run out to get.

"That's the kind of thing you just don't see anywhere," Pat Bortle says.

While the caregivers are getting their breaks, though, the participants are getting exposed to other people, ideas and activities through indoor volleyball and bowling, current events discussions, crafts, storytelling and the ever-popular Friday afternoon Bingo game. That socialization and acceptance by a group of one's peers is what keeps the participants, who may at first be apprehensive about attending the care center, coming back to "the club," Bortle says.

"So many of the elderly are sitting at home watching television," Pat says. "But being accepted by a whole group is great. The families just notice such a difference" when they start going to the center.

As many as 13 instructors from West Valley College, paid for by the college as part of their offerings for seniors, used to lead classes at the care center, Lorenz says. But with the school's budget cutbacks, the center now only gets four teachers and is looking for more volunteers to lead activities, she says.

The center and its participants and families are also relieved to not be moving to the city's new North Campus Facility on Prospect Road, Lorenz and Bortle say. The city had proposed that the entire senior center and adult care center move their operations, but the adult care center was concerned that it would have to start all over creating an appropriate and licensed place for its care receivers. In addition, its current location, next to the city's preschool and within the civic center, in the heart of Saratoga, provided a psychological message that seniors belong among Saratoga's important institutions. The location even allowed for visits by students at St. Andrew's and Sacred Heart schools, Lorenz says.

"Our place is so perfect here, we don't need any improvements," she says. "We visited the new site and worried that it would never be as nice as what we have here. When they were going to move us to the other place, to my way of thinking, the sheriff's station [which could have occupied the current senior center] would have been a waste of a beautiful space."

To attend the center, participants pay on a sliding scale of $11 to $45 a day, Lorenz says, which Crabtree adds is less than the cost of hiring someone to come into the home.

But the support the care center provides is invaluable to those who need it.

"Keeping them out of a nursing home is a goal here," Lorenz says of the participants. "People don't realize this is an option. It's so gratifying to know we made a difference in their lives, the participants and the families."